Comic strips and comic books were among the most popular and influential forms of mass media in 20th-century America. This fascinating book focuses on fifteen pioneering cartoonists, ranging from Winsor McCay to Chris Ware, who brought this genre to the highest level of artistic expression and who had the greatest impact on the development of the form. Organised chronologically, Masters of 20th-Century American Comics explores the rise of newspaper comic strips and comic books and considers their artistic development throughout the century. Featuring a wide selection of original drawings as well as progressive proofs, vintage printed Sunday pages and comic books themselves, the authors also look at how the art of comics was transformed by artistic innovation as well as by changes in popular taste, economics and printing conventions. First appearing in newspaper Sunday supplements, the comic strip became immediately successful and created the largest audience of any medium of its time. The comic book first began as a way to print existing newspaper comics, then subsequently established the mass popularity of superheroes in the 1940s and 1950s before it matured as a vehicle for independent personal expression in the underground comic books and graphic novels of the 1960s. Artists featured in Masters of 20th-Century American Comics: Winsor McCay 'Little Nemo', Lyonel Feininger 'Kin-der-Kids' and 'Wee Willie Winkie', George Herriman 'Krazy Kat', E. C. Segar 'Thimble Theatre starring Popeye', Frank King 'Gasoline Alley', Chester Gould 'Dick Tracy', Milton Caniff 'Terry and the Pirates', Charles Schulz 'Peanuts', Will Eisner 'The Spirit', Jack Kirby 'Captain America' and 'Fantastic Four', Harvey Kurtzman Mad Magazine, R. Crumb Zap Comix, Art Spiegelman Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers, Gary Panter 'Jimbo', Chris Ware Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth.